Who makes the best carbs of all the ones out on the market (edelbrock, holley......)? Gonna put them on my Nailhead: 1950 Chevy 3100 '61 401cu Nailhead 700r4 automatic Eelco 2x4 intake Stock engine
i bought 4 carbs in one week..settled on the holley 770. i could have as easily kept the edelbrock. there wasn't that much difference in them.
I like Edelbrocks, great for street, just bolt it on and go. If you playing with carbs all the time as in racing/tuning get a Holley (Damn fire starters). Another good choice is a Quadrajet but it takes someone who really knows them to set the up perfectly, you can get the best of both worlds, fuel economy and performance.
I've got a Carter WCFB on my 283 powered roadster. A Holley 750 with Carb Shop jet plates on the 3W with a 360 ci sbc and a Holley 3-2 barrel set up on my 327 ci high compression sbc race car. They all work as designed. Once you understand the tuning and adjustment of any carb you will have success. I've also used the Edelbrock carbs and Rodchester quadra-jets and they work well too. Pick one and study the info sheets they aren't that complicated.
Very difficult to improve on the original carb (either Rochester or Carter) which came on the nailhead; unless you have made MAJOR internal changes to the engine. Jon.
I think the fact that most folks forget is the factory spent millions designing and tuning thier carbs each for a specific application and many times designed it for an intended altitude designation. We go buy a universal carb and think it should run well right out of the box and most will! With a little idle adjustment, but this is not a one size fits all and most folks have a local "racer guru" who tells them to bolt on a 850 double pumper on thier stock 350 and guess what? Disapointment sets in real fast! I think all carbs are great once they are tuned properly. Not everyone can do it so start with the right CFM and then read tech here on the HAMB and do it, or hire a for real tuning shop, it will be some of the best money you will ever spend! My daily driver is 12.90 car in street trim and this morning when it was 12 degrees, a few pumps and I had to manualy hold the throttle for a minute or so, and then it idled just fine. A often overlooked accessory for carbs in real world driving conditions is a choke ground limter, Holley sells it and it works with any electric choke carb, hooks to the ground side of the choke and the module bolts to the cyl head and slows down the ground path untill heat is registered which inturn keeps the choke closed longer. Tips like these are just research. Good luck with the project.
Lol, how about learn to tune the damn things? I'm not, if you have the '66 Quadrajet manifolds for the 401/425's it is indeed the best choice... Edelbrock's work real well on the Nailheads. Though they do take a little tweaking. And it's not to hard to do.
i've never returned a carb for tuneability. all the ones i have returned were for leakage. the last thing i want is leaking carbs..you jump to conclusions here my man!!
If it was an Edelbrock, then open the damn thing and check the floats. Check to see if there is manufacturing crap in the carb. If you bolt a carb on straight out of the box you are setting yourself up for disappointment. No matter what carb and where it comes from , I open them up and check them out. Just being slung around in the box can move the float adjustment and more than half the time they are off. And more than half the time there is crap in them. Quality control is not what it once was. You need to be thorough.
this thread is about what carb is best,not whether i choose to keep a leaky carb. i do not open up a new carb and void the warranty. the only thing i do to a new carb is set it period. i can not afford to take a carb back and be told that the warranty is void because it's been messed with. you have chose to make this thread about what i do and not what the op was asking. i don't care what your shop practice is,don't want to know. you may be the shits when it comes to being the god of mechanics, that is not my call, the fact is,i choose to not mess with a new carb that has shitty quality. i need the room to store good parts. not parts that the manufacturer won't honor the warranty because i screwed with it first..now that's my choice.
That's laughable at best. Edelbrock, nor any other carb manufacturer has ever denied a warranty to me based on the carb being opened. As a matter of fact if you call their tech line, that is exactly what they will tell you to do. No matter what the best carb for the application is, if it is not properly set up and installed it will not be the best carb. Period. To tell people that if it doesn't work right out of the box to return it is some of the worst advice I've ever seen given here. Wether it be a Holley, a Demon, or anything else for that matter opening it up does not void the warranty. And for that matter the local parts store has no problems taking tehm back if they've been open. I was on the phone ordering parts when I was writing this and asked. And just as a point of reference. How do you suppose you are going to set the carb up for anything but a mild Chevy 350 if you don't open it up? That's pretty much what the Edelbrock's come set up for (supposedly) from the factory. If you choose to take this as a direct attack on you, that's on you, it's not, it's trying to give the guy all the info. There is no "out of the box" carb for the Nailheads.
i've got other things to do than justify my lifes decisions to someone i don't know and someone that doen't pay my bills . you have a good day trying to get everyone goose stepping to your tune. i make the choices i make and that's it. whether they make sense to you ,it doesn't matter. i only have so much time left on this earth and it's not gonna be trying to satisfy the wonderful mechanic god zman...i've got through life many decades without you.
Not to add to the drama but if someone can't open a carb to double check if the factory setings are correct and be sure there isn't any debris in there then put it back together and not have it look like it was never opened shouldn't be messing with a carb in the first place. This is no place for "ham fisted" mechanics.............SERIOUSLY!! Frank WOW!! that has to be the longest sentence I've ever posted on the HAMB.
Well you are gonna get a million different answers, As everybody has a carb they are more keen to. Me personally I like edelbrock for street/strip and holley for all out drag.
I would go with a quadrajet for a street/strip car, choke very adjustable,vaccum secondaries works well with any trans or gear ratio
Can't we all just get along? I like AFB's in Carter or Edelbrock/Weber flavours. You can tune them very precisely if you spend the time on them. Work great in dual quad apps. If you need something like a double pumper, you will be going Holley or Demon.
It's on you then, but then you'll never have anything that runs worth a shit if you're afraid to open the damn things up. So you and the chip on your shoulder have a nice day.
I really like the quadrajets, but like I said they take a one year only manifold for the Nailheads. '66 to be exact, and they're getting pricey. I've been looking for a decent deal on one and have come up empty so far. As far as square bore carbs go, I'm more of a fan of the Carter/Edelbrock in more street applications. I personally am a fan of the gasket surfaces being above the fuel level.
I really like what zman has to say. Trusting the floats to still be set correctly is like trusting a whore. I like q-jets personally because I've rebuilt a few and managed not to screw them up too badly. I've had a few edelbrocks on SBC and never had a problem. Never had a holly, I've never had anything performance enough to use one. Word on the street is they're fiddly and don't work as well on a daily driver. I think there's probably some truth to that.
Not difficult at all. Probably thousands of sites with info on that all over the web. A lot of people don't like a certain carb because they buy it, bolt it on, and never tune it. If it runs terrible, they think it is just a poorly made carb. Usually it just needs tuned. I've used AVS's, AFB's, Holleys and Demons. I would say my favorite is my 850 annular Speed Demon. Out of the box it ran terrible, but after a weekend of tuning, it runs like a top on my street driven 440.
This would be a great thread if we knew things like Engine displacement, vague power level, type of intake manifold (carb flange), type of transmission, and type of car Til these questions are answered you won't find value in this thread, only confusion. Good luck with your project.
I actually looked back in the original poster's posts, he's got a '60 Buick 401, that would be a squarebore. Looks to be going in a '50 Chevy pick up. Doesn't specify transmission. Doesn't seem to be more than a stock engine at the moment. So I'd go Edelbrock/Carter.
What Zman said Thank You exactly correct but it's a '61 trans is going to be a 700r4 automatic. Yes it is going to be a pretty much stock engine not really looking to going to the track with it but would like to have the best setup just incase I met someone at a red light.
And, for god sakes man, choose the proper CFM for your engine. We here in the U.S.A. seem to have a fascination with over carburetion. Bigger is almost never better. I get cars in all the time that nobody has been able to get run right. Nine times out of ten, I have to pull the HUGE carb and put a properly sized one on it. I am in the small venturi, high velocity camp. I just sent out a MEL 430 with a much smaller carb (700) then it came in with (850). It now has more pickup, better throttle response, and now has logged a 41% increase in fuel mileage. The tailpipe emissions are dramatically lower too. The only downside was buying two carbs, instead of one, and paying 5 shops to fail to tune. http://www.4secondsflat.com/Carb_CFM_Calculator.html
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